


Gone

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tvrealm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merle is near-delirious when they find him, perched on the crumbling rooftop of a run-down convenience store near the interstate, a dozen walkers stumbling below and scratching at the bricks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tvrealm comment fic challenge, for the prompt "TWD, Merle, gone"
> 
> Post Season One. Merle is a racist; his views are not mine.
> 
> * * *

Merle is near-delirious when they find him, perched on the crumbling rooftop of a run-down convenience store near the interstate, a dozen walkers stumbling below and scratching at the bricks. Sweat drips into his eyes, blurring his vision, and at first he thinks they're more walkers, more of those sons of bitches who just don't know that when you die you're supposed to lie down and stay dead. He raises the gun, the one he was going to use to blow his own brains out, but his vision doubles, triples. He's not even sure if he manages to get a shot off, but he hears the crack of returning gunfire, loud and sharp after so much silence, the way it used to be when he'd take Daryl out to the woods and they'd sit in the blind for hours, not talking, not moving, just waiting for a damn buck to wander on by and make itself their dinner. His only hope is that they use the brains God gave them and know enough to shoot him in the head.

When he wakes up he's lying in an actual bed, crisp clean linens and a cold cloth on his forehead and meds that aren't as good as the little blue pills back in his tent at the quarry but they clear his head enough so that he can talk. He raises his arms when he gestures and can still feel the ghost fingers of his missing hand close into a fist.

The man who calls himself The Governor understands his pain, and Merle is smart enough to let the man have all the delusions of grandeur he wants as long as he helps him reap his vengeance.

On the drive to the camp he imagines what he'll do to them. To that blonde bitch who thinks she's better than him; to the nigger that dropped the damn key – thought he was foolin' old Merle, pretending it was an accident, but Merle's mama didn't raise no idiot. And especially to Rick Grimes, who cold-cocked him when he wasn't looking and handcuffed him to the fucking roof in the first place. Yeah, he has lots of plans for Officer Friendly.

He's gonna have himself some fun, and then he's gonna collect his baby brother and go on back to this Woodbury and get them set up just fine. People like him and Daryl, they could do real well in a place like that.

But the camp is deserted, because God never smiles on people like him. People that have a righteous cause always gotta work that little bit harder.

He shrugs off the Governor's restraining arm; rips at the note taped to the dismantled red sports car, tears at the plastic wrapping with his teeth, crumbles the paper in his hand and lets it drop to the dusty ground.

He knows that none of the graves belongs to Daryl. Not to that damn cop, either.

They can be at the CDC by mid-afternoon.


End file.
